Dhaka – Kamal Hossain, the leading figure in the opposition Jatiya Oikya Front, will not attend the alliance’s pre-scheduled rally in northern Rajshahi city on health ground.

“He will not be able to go to Rajshahi as he has been suffering from fever since Thursday night,” Front spokesman Lutful Kabir Hamim told reporters in Dhaka.

The Oikya Front, which accommodated opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, earlier announced that it would hold a long-march towards the northern city and arrange a rally in Rajshahi if the government does not accept their four party demands.

The alliance suspended the march despite their meeting with the government twice brought hardly any visible change in the political scene, but they stick to the rally to be held on Friday.

Most other senior leaders of the BNP and its allies flew to Rajshahi in the morning to join the rally. Some others left Dhaka in the previous evening.

Hamim said Kamal Hossain wished success of the rally despite he failed to join it.

The Oikya Front’s rally is scheduled at Madrasa Maidan in Rajshahi city. It leaders will press for their 7-point demands that included release of jailed BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, formation of a non-party caretaker administration and dissolution of parliament ahead of the next election.